Losing My Religion

I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, … Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love?
I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong.
We are not special.
We are not crap or trash, either.
We just are.
We just are, and what happens just happens.
And God says, “No, that’s not right.”

Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything.

― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club




My favorite local coffee shop in town does that thing where they have two tip jars, and wherever you put your tip is answering a question. For example, this morning’s question was “Which Harrison Ford?” The two tip jars were labeled “Han Solo” and “Indiana Jones.” I’ll confess, I paused a long moment deciding in which jar to drop my coins. (I mean, seriously, could there be a more difficult frivolous question? They are both my #1 answer!) 

I have a pretty good time checking out what categories they come up with every day, and studies show that these “category” tip jars actually garner more tips than unlabeled jars. This is because it’s the very nature of our brains to want to put things into categories. 

Categories, and their corresponding labels, help our brains make sense of large amounts of information quickly. I’ll skip the cognitive psychology lecture for you though. What’s important to know is that the labels our brains create (aka schema) work really well for most things in this world, but they create a lot of problems when we apply them to human beings. It is much more difficult to imagine and see people for the complex individuals that we are, and our brain actively fights this by wanting to categorize everyone. This, of course, is how we end up with ugly things like racism, sexism, classism, etc. 

Lately, I’ve been pondering not only how we put others into categories, but ourselves as well. We see ourselves in very specific ways, and sometimes I wonder which came first - the labels we have for ourselves, or the behaviors that give us those labels. And what happens when those things change, but no one wants to change their label for you?

 ~ 

When I was 22, I was nearing the end of a six-month road trip with my friend Charlie, and her biggest stress in those final days of traveling was what she called “ having an identity crisis.”

“Who am I,” she asked fretfully, “if I’m not a nomadic adventurer living out of a van?” 

It was a label she was about to lose - one that she liked very much. 

~ 

Here’s a good test of the labels people have for you. When people introduce you at a party, what’s the tidbit of info they share about you? Mine, without fail, is always exactly the same. 

“This is Gretchen. She runs hundred-mile marathons.” 

Although I completely, 100% identify as a Runner with a capital “R,” I still cringe lately when I hear this introduction. It’s not just that I have to bite my tongue and politely refrain from informing people that there is no such thing as a hundred-mile marathon, that a marathon is a specific distance of 26.2 miles (okay, unless you’re in South Africa, but I digress). It’s mostly the fact that then I have to talk about myself. Specifically, I am obligated to talk about running “hundred-mile marathons.” 

But lately, I feel completely talked-out on the subject. I’ve written thousands of words on it. Like, what else could I possibly have to say about it? I didn’t even write a race report for my last hundred-miler because meh. I didn’t care to. 

When I run into people around town, or see friends I haven’t seen in a long time, the conversation inevitably starts with, “How’s the running going?” And lately, the answer is always, “Oh, I’m not doing much running lately.” (And invariably, no one believes me.) 

Like I said, I completely identify as a runner, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. When something has been such an ingrained part of your life for so long, it doesn't just disappear. I also don’t think you need to be actively doing it to still see it as a part of you. But here’s the thing: I’m starting to realize that might be the only thing people see me as. A runner. 

Before training for ultras sucked all of my time away, I was many things. A rock climber, a painter, a knitter, a skier, a photographer. I think it’s fine that I don’t have as much time for those things; it’s all a choice. But I still see them as part of who I am. Labels that fit me.

You know what I’m getting off on these days? Teaching. No joke. This is what’s taking up all of my time. 

It’s not because I’ve become some crazy workaholic. Ha! Never. It’s because I’ve somehow reached this magical little place in my career where things are interesting and exciting, where I am supported professionally and creatively, where I have confidence in my skills but a drive to learn moremoremore every day. It is quite possible, in fact, that it is learning that I love more than teaching. 

I struggle to explain it all adequately, but somehow, the passion and creativity that used to go into writing, that used to fuel me through 80-mile training weeks, is all going into my classroom. And it’s FUN. 

It seems ironic to me that “teacher” is a label that most of my friends do not ascribe to me. Or maybe they do, but it just doesn’t sound as exciting as “runs hundred-mile marathons.” 

I don’t know that this joyride through my career will last forever, but I’m onboard until the tracks run out. And since summer vacation began in mid-June, I’ve been dipping my toes back into some of those other identities. Rock climber, guitar player, maybe even writer. 

~ 

In the past, my training has been fueled by my love of racing. For some reason, it’s not fashionable for non-elite runners to admit to competitiveness. This is especially true, I think, for women. But I’ll go ahead and own it. I have always loved racing. Even when I’ve had less-than-optimal fitness, I’ve nearly always toed the line at races with an intention to throw down my best performance. I mean, otherwise, what’s the point, right? 

I love running, but signing up for a race has always been what gets me out the door to train. I am religious about writing out a season-long training plan for myself, and meticulous about recording the results of each day’s workout. 

Or at least, I used to be. 

At the moment, racing just isn't as sacred as it once was, and the daily prayer of going for a run is most often left unsaid. 

So I guess it’s not surprising that a waning interest in racing over the last few years has led to a dramatic drop in my running mileage. That’s okay. I have other labels to embody. 

Since the Broken Arrow Skyrace in mid-June, my racing calendar has been completely blank. It’s something of a disconcerting feeling, but there’s also something new and exciting about it. It’s as though, with no specific goals to train for, I am rediscovering other reasons I love to run. 

Community appears to be a big reason. At least half of my runs in the past month have been with friends and/or group runs with the Donner Party Mountain Runners. These people give me a reason to get out the door, and they are completely awesome to boot. 

Meditative alone time is clearly my other motivation. I’ve written many times before about the relationship between running and writing, so it comes as no surprise to me that when my running mileage drops so too does my inspiration to write. Most of my writing is an act of reflection, a processing of my experience or that of others, and that reflection nearly always begins when I am out on the trails. Without that uninterrupted time for my mind to wander, to give my thoughts the freedom to follow any path and see where it leads, I find it nearly impossible to squeeze my enormous emotions and jumbled ideas into the inadequate packages of words, sentences, and paragraphs. 

~ 

We all take on roles and identities throughout the course of our lives - ones that evolve and change. Child, student, athlete, nerd, musician, parent, teacher, artist, lover. The ones that stay with us the longest may have the most impact on shaping how others see us and how we see ourselves. Girl, daughter, runner, friend. 

While it’s not so easy to shed these various identities like dirty clothes at the end of the day, maybe we can still claim them even if it’s not who we are every day. When I am injured, I am a runner. When I am uninspired and write nothing, I am a writer. When I only lace up my shoes one day a week (or month), I am a runner. When I write horrifically bad poetry that no one will ever see, I am a writer. When I run three miles instead of ten (or 30, or 100), I am a runner. When the only writing I do is writing comments and feedback for revision on student papers, I am a writer. 

What I find somewhat surprising is that, of those two identities - runner and writer - the one I miss the most right now is writer. 

 ~ 

The more labels I pin to myself, the more I feel I am defying any single one of them. Of course, we all defy our labels, in spite of our brains’ need to have them. Is this because we are all “unique snowflakes of special unique specialness”? Not exactly. I think we just are who we are, and human beings can be a difficult puzzle to solve. 

I think that for people to understand and connect with one another, we must, as author John Green encourages in many of his writings, imagine others complexly. This includes how we imagine and see ourselves. Snowflakes are unique, but puzzles are complex. 

~ 

This summer, I have embarked on a quest to rekindle the fire of my various passions. No teaching - it’s time for EVERYTHING ELSE! 

This includes running, which, I’m not kidding, I feel like I’m completely rediscovering. In a very low-mileage way, that is. I returned from an early morning track workout with DPMR one day this week and declared, wide-eyed, to Andrew, “God, I feel so good!” Like, what a wondrous thing! Who knew? 

It also includes writing. Even if all I manage to cobble together is a collection of confusing and somewhat unrelated thoughts about labels and identity and running. 

Running and writing: the Han Solo and Indiana Jones of my identities. They are both my #1 answer.

New identity: Ski Mountaineer. (Mt. Shasta summit, 14,180') 

Made up Stories and Young Adults

Neither novels nor their readers benefit from attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species.

                                            - John Green, The Fault in our Stars

Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's.

                               - Stephen King, On Writing

As a teacher of both writing and literature, I often find myself telling my students that reading and writing are two sides of the same coin. Writing, for me, is an act of connecting, of reaching out. It’s a way of creating relationships with people I don’t even know, and I’ve long believed that creating meaningful relationships is part of the important work of a life well lived.

I think this is what art in general is all about. Whether you’re a writer, a musician, a painter, a singer, a dancer – on some level, you’re attempting to connect with others.

Reading, then, is also an act of connecting. Instead of doing most of the talking, the reader does most of the listening. The reader is not, however, a passive participant. As John Green puts it, “Reading is always an act of empathy. It’s always an imaging of what it’s like to be someone else.”

You can live so many different lives through the act of reading stories. It’s possible to learn so much about so many different things through the living of those lives. It’s simply brilliant.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I’m more of a reader at the moment than a writer. I simply haven’t had the emotional energy for creating my own art, but I’ve taken great solace in living on the other side of the equation by reading more than usual.

And what do I read? Mostly young adult fiction. After all, I do spend my days surrounded by them (young adults, I mean). But to be honest, I know that’s not the only reason I like to read what they’re reading. I love YA literature for some of the same reasons I like working with its audience: there’s just something very compelling about that time of life.

The experience of being a teenager can be exciting, confusing, provocative, scary, poignant, and incredibly vivid. That transformation from childhood to adulthood is a pivotal time in many of our lives, and one where we make a lot of choices than can affect the adult we eventually become.

The first book of assigned reading that I can remember loving is John Knowles’s A Separate Peace. I was a sophomore in high school, and I remember feeling so connected to the emotions of the characters. Not coincidentally, the essay I wrote for that book is one of the first pieces of writing I can recall really pouring my heart into. An early lesson in how good literature can inspire.

As an adult, my relationship to the genre has changed. In high school, I loved Holden Caulfield because he was so critical of adults, so full of judgment. These days, I don’t see that as such an intriguing characteristic, but his struggle to make sense of his world and growing up is one that gives me empathy for my own students. I still love Catcher in the Rye, but for much different reasons than I did as a teen.

When I first began teaching ten years ago, I did make a concerted effort to read some more current YA fiction so that I could share casual discussions with my students. I didn’t realize it would be a path to reconnecting with an entire genre of literature I’d forgotten. On one trip to the bookstore in those early years, I happened across, and purchased, John Green’s recently published, debut novel, Looking for Alaska. If you’ve talked about books with me at all, you’ll know that John Green is my favorite author, and Alaska was my first taste of brilliant YA literature since I’d been a teen myself. If I were to give you a quick summary of the book, I would say that it is strikingly similar to A Separate Peace.

Not only do I love John Green’s books (If you haven’t yet read The Fault in our Stars, go do it now! Even if you don’t think you’re a fan of YA. Just read it.), but the man himself is completely full of awesome. Through the youtube channels created by him and his brother, Hank, he has allowed his fans unprecedented access to who he is, and what he and Hank think on all kinds of topics. John Green is smart, thoughtful, hilarious, and an unabashed nerd. He and Hank have created a community of like-minded, motivated individuals who are more than just fans of the books and videos and songs the brothers create. They are participants, engaged in artistic conversations. The world needs more people like them.

One of the reasons that I am allowing myself to go all fan-girly over John here is that he is such an inspiration, and with the recent success of The Fault in our Stars, more people are starting to realize it. (John shares some interesting concerns over this phenomenon in this video.) Much of what I’ve said here are similar to things John has said in his videos over the years. It’s easy to connect with someone who verbalizes so well notions that you already hold true. He sums it all up very nicely I think in this introduction to Crash Course Literature. (What? You’ve never heard of Crash Course? You’d better go check it out! Right after you finish reading The Fault in our Stars.)

I love this video for so many reasons, but one is the topic that I last heard addressed by my own high school English teacher many years ago: authorial intent. This is completely my favorite thing about reading – it is up to YOU as the reader to interpret what happened! Can’t decide whether Pi really survived for 227 days at sea with Richard Parker? Don’t understand the ending of The Giver? Really really dying to know whether he chose the Lady or the Tiger? (Questions, by the way, that all of my students ask me.) You, as the reader, have to decide for yourself, and each person’s answer may be different.  “You decide whether the swing set is just a swing set.” Author Nathan Bransford has a great post about How Art Changes With Us, emphasizing (to me) how what we bring to the table as a reader is incredibly relevant to our understanding of a story.

Another reason I’ve been thinking about these things lately is that, back in September, my students and I celebrated Banned Books Week. It blows my mind that people want to prevent teens from reading about the ugly and difficult things in this world. How else to allow them to learn about, and then hopefully avoid experiencing, those ugly things themselves? How else to keep them from being lost if they already have?

Again, literature is such an incredible tool for learning. This is Speak author Lauire Halse Anderson’s take on censorship.

Reluctant readers make me sad, but at the same time, I consider them a great challenge.  I know there are books out there for everyone. One of my biggest jobs as a teacher of reading is to help kids find books that they love. I can say that I have definitely gotten a lot better at that part of the job. How? Simply by loving reading the same books they love reading and then sharing them.

Today in class, one of my students interrupted a lesson to declare, “I finished Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children!”

I asked him if he liked it, and he was like, “Yeah, but it was such a cliffhanger!”

And I was all, “I know! He’d better be writing a sequel!”

Important conversations to have with kids, right?

(Incidentally, yes, many of my students have figured out they can derail a boring-as-hell grammar lesson by throwing out a comment about a book. I kind of consider that on-topic, really.)

Anyway, my point is, read good books. Good fiction matters because it connect us. It teaches us about each other and about ourselves, and often we don’t even realize we’re learning at all. We’re just being swept away in the power of a good story. Stories help to make the world a little bit smaller, in a very good way.

What do you think? What was the first story that swept you away? What are your favorite titles now?

Drama and Sport: How High School Football is Like a Good Book.

 

I was rolling down Donner Pass Rd. last weekend, just finishing up some errands, when I had cause to reach out and turn up the volume on the car radio. Our local station, as is typical for a Saturday in the fall, was broadcasting the high school football game. (Yes, my town really is that small.) What piqued my interest was the tone of voice of the announcers, informing the listeners that the Wolverines had been shut out at halftime. They seemed surprised. Almost worried.

I knew the team held a huge winning streak, the largest in the state, at 34 games. Since this was the playoffs, it had the makings of a good game, and when I pulled in the driveway I asked my husband if he wanted to run down to Truckee High to catch the second half. What we witnessed was one of the best sporting events I’ve seen in years.

I’ve long declared that my favorite movie genre is what my husband calls the “feel good sports movie.” I love the drama of sports. Movies like Miracle, Invincible, and Remember the Titans (all based on true stories). Nothing makes me cry like a good Cinderella-Story sports movie.

In thinking about this fact after the high school football game, I realized the real draw of sports like this to me – they have all the makings of a perfect plot. They’re a story just waiting to unfold. Drama in real life. Watching a good football game, or any sporting event, is like reading a gripping novel where you really can’t tell what kind of ending it’s going to have.

You couldn’t have created better plot structure for a story than the events that took place on the field at Truckee High that day.

You had conflict: Not only do you have one team against another, but Truckee football had the added pressure of a 34-game winning streak spanning 3 years. KCRA TV in Sacramento called them The King of California Football. More than once, the Fallon High School fans in the visitor’s bleachers took up the chant “Break That Streak!” Not to mention, of course, the winner of this game would advance to the state championship game.

There was plenty of rising action: Truckee didn’t get on the board at all in the first half, starting the 3^rd quarter down by a field goal. Tension already. Then, in the second half, the lead changed hands three times. Neither team was ever more than a touchdown away from losing their lead. Andrew and I stood at the fence behind the end-zone with other late arrivals, cheering and wailing with every play. We were in solidarity with strangers with whom we had one thing in common – we wanted our team to win! With every second lost on the clock in that 4^th quarter, the tension grew.

We even had an excellent false climax: Fallon scored and was up by 3 points with 4 minutes left to play. Truckee took almost that entire 4 minutes to get the ball back to our end of the field. With less than 30 seconds left, they were fourth and goal. A field goal would have tied it up, but they chose to go for it. (Well, we’re a ski town: Go big or go home!) They squeaked into the end zone with 8 seconds left on the clock. The crowd went absolutely NUTS! I mean, I didn’t even know we had enough people in our town to make that kind of noise. We picked up a 15 yard penalty for “excessive celebrating.” I didn’t really think it was excessive, considering.

And of course, the climax: “Well, game’s over, let’s get out of here.” We walked about ten yards before changing our minds. May as well watch the last 8 seconds play out. A Fallon player caught the kick-off and somehow found a hole. He was running. Flying. Streaking for that end zone. Oh. My. God.

I could imagine the radio announcers: “He’s  at the 30! The 20! The 10!”

“”No! No! No!” We all screamed. They were at the far end of the field, so I couldn’t see what happened, but the crowd’s reaction told all: The Truckee side roared in triumph, while Fallon’s fans let loose with painful moans. SO CLOSE!

But guess what? That wasn’t the climax. It was just another false climax! That is what you call some good rising action. It’s a page-turner of a story.

There was a penalty called on the play. “A late hit,” another fan told me. I looked at the scoreboard. No time left on the clock. So … did we win?

I don’t know the rules that well, but apparently the penalty called for one more play, even though no time remained. You have got to be kidding me!

The players lined up again as we all held our breaths. The Fallon players couldn’t make it happen, and once again Truckee fans roared –now with equal parts relief and triumph.

And that, really, was the resolution: Relief, triumph, and looking to the State game this weekend. All the most exciting stories end with the climax, the resolution only a footnote: The End.

 Thanks for the drama, Truckee boys. Good luck at State tomorrow!

Final Score

 

Do you have any favorite sports dramas?

Tomorrow We Will Run Faster

 

 

"Tomorrow we will run faster -- stretch out our arms farther ..."  

- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

It was sometime last winter on a backcountry ski day with Andrew – one of those days with clear blue skies, chest-deep powder, and no one around but my favorite adventuring partner. In other words: perfect.

I recognized this perfection, this utter happiness, and breathed it in. Held on to its every passing moment. Not just because it was glorious, but because I knew it wouldn’t last.

“When do think was the best time in your life – when you were happiest for the longest amount of time?” I asked suddenly.

We’d just spent 30 minutes laboriously breaking a fresh skin track and now stood at the top of a ridge, looking out over a wide, white landscape of mountains, preparing for the reward of a beautiful float down through the powder.

“I mean,” I felt the need to explain, “it’s just so hard for me to feel content. Satisfied. It’s not that I’m unhappy a lot, it’s just that I always have this feeling of anxiety that there’s something more I need to do, to achieve.”

I find such beautiful locations, ones that require such effort to find, to be the perfect settings for these kinds of soul-digging conversations.

Not long after, I read this post by Nathan Bransford which struck such a chord with me that thoughts of it have been marinating in my brain since reading it seven months ago. Mr. Bransford proposes that writers, by their very nature, are strivers – those not content to simply live, but to always reach for something more. His writes what has become my favorite recent quote about writing:

“Writing is an act of getting down on your hands and knees and pushing on the ground and hoping the world spins on a slightly different axis. It’s the art of not taking life for granted and trying to make something, anything change.”

This feels so exactly, completely true.

I began to wonder about myself not just as a writer, but as a runner, too. Even after a nearly perfect race, (which is rare) the sense of satisfaction never lasts. Always, there is something new to accomplish, some new goal to occupy ones attention. And this is good because if there wasn’t, we would never get better. Never run faster, never go farther. This is what moves us forward as runners – this inner need for something more. It’s what makes us improve.

When the mind dwells on a certain topic, it finds that everything relates. So, it was not surprising that while reading John Steinbeck’s The Pearl that same week, this quote jumped out at me:

“For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.”

And I began to wonder – is it not just writers, not just runners? Is it all of us?

I was especially intrigued by the assertion that our inability to be satisfied is a talent. Again, this is what moves us forward. Think about the great achievers of the world, whomever you see as having accomplished big things. They were people who were not content to rest on the glory of their early successes. They always strove for something more.

So perhaps dissatisfaction is a talent. Still, I have to think it’s one best tempered with an attempt at balance and an appreciation for one’s blessings.

Because Mr. Bransford’s post related the idea of striving to The Great Gatsby, and to F. Scott Fitzgerald himself, it came to mind while recently watching John Green’s video on Gatsby. If you’re familiar with the book, his is an excellent, and concise, interpretation that is fun to watch.

As I followed the links on the serpentine path of the internet chain, I eventually watched the American Masters episode on Fitzgerald, “Winter Dreams.” It was fascinating! I learned what Mr. Bransford had already asserted – that Fitzgerald himself was a striver, like the characters of his stories, someone always reaching for more. And in spite of all this striving, Fitzgerald felt that the golden moment – what we think we want – can never live up to our dreams. The important thing is the dreaming.

“It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being.” –This Side of Paradise

To some extent I think the “becoming” holds more appeal than the “being” because real life is much more challenging than our dreams. It’s messier, sometimes uglier, and often more mundane.

In spite of all of this, I think it’s far too easy to glorify the tortured artist, and I don’t think a person has to be unhappy in order to feel driven. I hope not anyway. Jay Gatsby himself was described as having an “extraordinary gift for hope.” Maybe that’s the flipside of dissatisfaction, the positive spin. From our discontent, hope is born.

I know happiness comes from within. I know this. It comes from living deliberately, appreciating the small moments, doing meaningful work, and developing strong relationships with other people. This is why I could stand at the top of that mountain with Andrew and live that happiness so fully, even while accepting that it may be short-lived. 

I also know that this inner feeling of need, the desire for something more, to do something more, can drive a girl nuts if she lets it.

I have a recording of a live U2 concert. At one point in the show, in order to introduce the next song, Bono declares to the crowd, “I don’t know about you, but I feel pretty good about the fact that I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

Honestly, I don’t know if I feel good about it. I do know that I have an extraordinary hope that I won’t leave this earth without having affected, just the tiniest bit, the tilt of its axis.

~

What do you think? Are humans by their very nature dissatisfied? Could this be a good thing?

Running is a State of Being

When I’m not training for any particular races, I spend a lot of time on long, meandering walks with the dogs through the forest behind my house.

During one of these recent walks, words floated around in my head, finding their way into phrases, sentences, and even occasional paragraphs. Most of my writing happens on trail, with only a fraction of it actually finding its way from brain to fingers to keyboard.

A phrase kept arising that finally caused a serious conversation between Artistic Writer Me and Grammar Teacher Me.

“I ran slow.”

A fair statement, no? I mean, much of the time I am slow! But you see where Grammar Teacher Me has a problem with this, right?

Run is an action verb. You don’t run slow. You run slowly.

But I can’t gripe about my pace in a race by whining, “Man, I was running so damn slowly!”

Artistic Writer Me asserts: It wasn’t my legs that were slow; it wasn’t the action of running. It was just me!

I was slow!

And this is just fine, Grammar Teacher Me says, because “to be” is a linking verb. It expresses a state of being. It names the subject. Me=slow. Therefore, adjectives, not adverbs, are the menu item of choice.

I can be slow, but can I run slow?

It was then that I recognized this one truth: Running is a state of being. “To run” does not have to be an action verb.

I can run slow or fast. I can run happy, sad, heavy, or light. Sometimes, I just run. It's me being who I am.

And I felt quit triumphant at finding a conclusion that satisfied both Me’s.

New Eyes

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust

I love time off. Time off from school, from running. I love sleeping in, swimming at the lake, and taking leisurely walks through the woods with the dogs. I love backyard barbecues, live music in outdoor venues, and having a cold beer in the hot summer sun.

But you know what else I love? Getting back to it.

Last weekend I finally got out on a long training run just for myself. I wasn’t pacing a friend on a tough hundred miler. I wasn’t going short and easy so the dogs could get some exercise but still keep up with me. I wasn’t forcing myself out for a quick 5 miles just to maintain some fitness. I really, really needed a good, long run.

After the realization that, yes, some of our favorite high-country trails are still(!) covered in snow, Jamie and I decided to cruise the Flume Trail and Tahoe Rim Trail for 26 miles. I think of the Flume trail as the most beautiful trail in Tahoe, but on this day, the TRT was queen of the pageant.

We’d both run this exact stretch of the TRT – between Tunnel Creek Road and Spooner Summit – as part of the TRT Endurance Runs two weeks prior. It was somewhat of a mystery to both of us then why, on this day, it was so much more incredible.

“The trail has changed so much in just two weeks,” Jamie declared as we ran along the ridge toward Snow Valley Peak, “and in a better way.

“Which I didn’t think was possible,” she added.

It dawned on me that despite my many miles on this trail, this could be the first time I’d ever seen the wildflowers at their peak. I thought I’d experienced wildflower peak up there many times. I must have been wrong. More color and variety than in mid-July, they dazzled me all day long. Perhaps the heavy winter snow pack had brought forth rare varieties? I had no idea. All I knew was that we were both loving it.

As we descended the other side of Snow Valley Peak, we deliberately slowed.

“I’m not ready for it to be over!” Jamie whined.

“Me neither,” I said slowly, wistfully. “This section is technical anyway,” I reasoned, “so we should probably just take it easy and enjoy the view.”

Distant peaks still wearing the remnants of winter stood out above the sparkling waters of Tahoe. Thunderheads billowed and grew closer, white mounds of marshmallow growing above their dark, rain-filled bellies. The breeze spoke of their arrival and brushed the summer heat from our shoulders. My legs felt strong, and happy to be back in use.

Dropping down into a more wooded section of trail, I prepared for the long downhill back to the car. I’ve heard this section of trail described as boring, endless, monotonous, and painful. Myself, I think of it as “brown.” But not this day.

“Where did those come from?” Jamie pointed in surprise at a stretch of wildflowers covering the forest floor in a carpet of yellow, red, and purple.

It seemed there was a new treat around every corner – more flowers, views I’d never noticed before, and the fact that this section of trail actually felt rather short.

This week has also seen a return to both teaching and writing for me, as I began teaching a series of writing workshops. Maybe it’s that I’m only teaching 3 hours a day, or maybe it’s that my sole subject is writing. Maybe it’s because my students are here by choice and love writing. Perhaps it’s because I’ve simply missed it all – the writing, the teaching, the kids. Whatever the reason, it’s good to be back.

This, of course, is why teachers and students have summer off. Fresh perspective. It’s why runners take time off. It’s not just physical recovery; it’s mental and emotional.

This past spring, in the heart of my training for Western States, I told myself I wasn’t going to run a 100-miler next year. Already I’m struggling to keep that promise. Why did I tell myself that again? I can’t remember.

I can’t remember because every race seems to call my name. There are trails begging to be run, friends waiting to be joined. I have stories waiting to be told, books even, waiting to be written. When I run, I am truly and honestly a better, kinder person. I’m happier, less irritable, more aligned with the universe. When I write, I can make sense of it all.

Time away is always good, because it gives one the perspective to appreciate that which we truly love.